Is there a person/event that stimulated the creation of 'Culture War 23?'

Musically, a lot of the direction comes from one night. We played our first proper gig in Brighton last year and one song in particular, Team Player, really fizzed and went beyond what we had been doing up to that point. It was darker, more tightly wound, and had more of an edge. Reflecting on that, we decided to relax some of the rules we had about our songs and allow for more variety and subtlety. We had a lot of lyrical ideas around the way that “wedge” politics divides groups of people who should be working together to make their lives better, and instead are set against one another. The world is getting more envious, petty, and stupid again. That makes us sad, but it gives us a thread to pull on when we’re writing songs.

Last year, we got very frustrated that we were very often tagged as “funny” or pranksters, rather than it coming over that we were looking at the stupidity and wrongness of the world and calling it for what it was.

So, we wanted to create a set of songs and a package to pull them together that kept the satire and knowing glances but was also perhaps a little more heartfelt and direct.

What impact do you hope 'Culture War 23' will have on your audience or the music industry?

In the music industry, zero. Freedom from wanting to take any part in that nonsense is one of the best things about being an indie artist today. On our audience? Well, who knows? Honestly. You make what you think is good. You follow your heart. You craft the sonics, you blend your ideas together and you put it out. We have a much bigger audience than we did a year ago, and people seem to be really into what we do, and long may that continue. We are blessed to be able to release songs and have them heard all over the world. But you can’t write songs to please a particular demographic or group. Well, you can, but they’d be terrible songs.

You can go a little mad trying to read the data and work out where your audience is. We know that there are many, many thousands of people who would like what we do if they heard it. But they haven’t. So, by social media, by word of mouth, and by promoting what we do, we try to get our songs in front of the right people. The ones who will play “Too Cool” before they go out on a Saturday night. The ones who will play “Gastronaut” to their best friend and tell them to check this out.

Which song do you like the best and why?

At the time we make a song, it is the best song we’ve ever done. You have to commit utterly to every single detail of that song and invest in it without any reservation. If anyone ever sets out to write a song as a B-side or a filler, they’re cheating themselves and wasting their time. So, at some time or other, every track on that album has been our favourite. Our obsession. Truthfully, on a different day, with a different mental state, the choice would change.

It is fair to say though, which ones have had the biggest impact on us. I’d namecheck three.

“Too Cool” because it was the first time we worked with Hugo GT, our man in Canada. He is an incredibly talented engineer, and he took our song and pumped it full of something twisted and magical. At first, we were very nervous about trusting someone else to work on our stuff, but he nailed it, and more importantly, we learned an absolute ton by listening to how he did what he did. In the album tracks, there is a before and there is an after. We would never have recorded My Mood or Savage Mechanic without all the learning that came out of Too Cool.

“Gastronaut” because it is the bravest song on the album. It is a risk that pays off. Although our songs vary a lot, there are some features that run from piece to piece. Pete Brock’s guitar is one element. It isn’t always the first thing we record, but until he adds the six strings of hate, a song sounds like a demo. Gastronaut was a late-night mess of a song. This incredibly detailed drum loop that went through hundreds of tiny edits and a broken, distorted bass line, was recorded in one take that Ted couldn’t repeat even if he wanted to. The next morning, we found a piano in the street. A building near our studio was being cleared out and the builders just left it on the pavement. We liberated it and that afternoon, before we’d even cleaned it, we had a couple of microphones pressed up against it and Pete just recorded piano on the song over and over and over. It must have taken a hundred takes before suddenly it all landed. Musically it is a real departure, and live it is possibly the highlight of our set. Well, I think it is.

Last, but not least. “Bird of Happiness.” This song was kicked around in various formats for a long time. It was just never right. Meg Cratty from the Margaret Hooligans stepped in and just landed it with those vocals. Opening that recording from Philadelphia and playing it for the first time was certainly the high point of making the LP.

Can you walk us through your creative process when writing and composing music?

Warfare. Ideas need to fight and earn their place. As a band, we succeed partly because we listen to each other and cooperate, but also because we will fight to the death to prevent anything that isn’t right from making it into the final version. Sometimes it can get difficult, but once the blood dries and the dust settles, we’ve got the friendship to move on. We try to balance acceptance and respect for each other’s ideas with an absolute commitment to killing any idea that is not right for the song.

Some songs start with an owner, a champion who puts together the first demo. Some start with a conversation and an acoustic guitar at the kitchen table.

But there is always a moment of tension. A moment where your guts feel like they’re going to twist out of you.

How do you balance the artistic aspects of your music with the business side of the industry?

I don’t think we do. Well at least, not consciously. The artistic stuff is always the most important because that is why we do this thing that we do. We literally have no interest in the business side, other than as a way to reach more people with what we do.

We’ve learned a lot about the business side from mistakes we made in other bands and from listening to the friends we meet along the way. We have a pretty simple approach to promoting ourselves and trying to reach people and there is nothing magical about it, you just have to keep banging the drum, keep shaking the can.

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